Sunday the 8^th October saw a Hellingly houndDogs AFC send their Cadet team to Canterbury in round 1 of the SEYAF Championships 2017/18. This season sees the HoundDogs entering only a Cadet team due as a lot of last season’s Youth team moved up to the U17’s Contact team.

The team started the tournament against last

season’s runner’s up, East Kent Mavericks. The team started slowly on offence and struggled to move the ball very well. On the other hand, the Mavericks looked well set up and ran away with the game 24-0. The score could have been worse had it not been for a few fantastic stops by the defence especially Charlie Mullineux.

The HoundDogs then took on Kent Phoenix. The team fared slightly better, but still failed

to cross the line and score. However, they managed to move the ball for several 1^st downs and came with a few yards of scoring thanks to a couple of nice runs from Ben Boorer and Morgan Scott-Brundle. The score went in the favour of the Phoenix 12-0

Then came the Kent Exiles, who had won the Championship the previous year. Thing could have not got off better with a weaving run on the first play of the game that saw the HoundDogs just 10 yards short of the endzone. It was then a throw from Hayden Puttick who Ben Boorer then saw the HoundDogs cross the line and score. The

Exiles came back thanks to some amazing work from their Running backs which score them move to 18-3. Charlie Pattenden then made a great stop as the Exiles looked to run riot. The game finished with the Exiles winning 18-6.

The HoundDogs then saw the return of the Phoenix. The HoundDogs started brightly thanks to Morgan’s weaving runs, along with some new players being thrown in from the coach saw the Dogs almost cross the line. However, things started to fall apart thanks to a couple of long runs from the Phoenix’s running back with saw them score of two successive drive. The game finished Phoenix 12, HoundDogs 0.